


Supernova

by TheIntelligentDesigner



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Alec pining, Jace doesn't pine, M/M, May have weird liberties with timeline, Swearing, This started as a short vignette and turned into a long one-shot, also to be clear it's not that I don't understand grammar, based more on the TV show but Jace has golden eyes like they say he does in the book, it's supposed to be poetic, no sex sorry, so much pining, two golden eyes to be clear, weird science metaphors
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-29
Updated: 2019-04-29
Packaged: 2020-02-09 21:47:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18646741
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheIntelligentDesigner/pseuds/TheIntelligentDesigner
Summary: The last thing that stars do before they explode, before they expel their starstuff and send shockwaves echoing out into the universe to help build more stars. They shine with love. Love for their births, love for their lives, and love for their deaths, knowing that the cycle will continue long after they’re gone.Alec had always thought Jace’s eyes shone like the sun. Now he knew that Jace actually contained the fire of a thousand suns – that he was ready and able to explode at any minute, giving rise to fire in others after sweeping them away.Jace isn't going to burn for billions of years, but Alec doesn’t need him to. Just the rest of their lives will do just fine.





	Supernova

There it was.

The knock.

_The knock._

Alec groaned internally, knowing he didn’t really have a choice.

He also knew who was on the other side of the door, why he was there, and what he wanted –– exactly why the last fucking thing on this godforsaken earth he wanted to do was acknowledge that fucking knock and/or answer that fucking door.

Jace, having lost patience (as quickly as he usually did), pounded hard. Alec realized that he must’ve closed his fist and started almost punching the door.

Not entirely surprising, he thought, as he steeled himself for what was to follow, and began moving to the entrance of his room.

“Hi,” was all he could manage when he opened the door and looked at that face.

Fist poised to punch-knock the wooden slab in front of him. Blonde hair askew. Murder in his eyes. His sunset eyes.

Jace Wayland: an image of beautifully dark anger, righteous and offended, glowing with an aura that Alec could only distantly hear himself comparing to heavenly fire –– in the small little corner of his mind that he hadn’t been able to conquer. It was the vestigial limb of his true humanity, the piece that felt and cared and burned with love.

Years ago, on a bright summer day, he’d tried to kill that piece of himself. He’d failed, fucked over by eyes Midas could only dream of. He’d drowned in gold and died before he could deposit his remains, before he could cast them into the shadows to wither and die.

He’d prepared for that moment for over a year, knowing that swearing himself to his soulmate without tainting both himself and _him_ would be near impossible, but hoping against hope – praying to the Angel – that he could manage.

The best he’d done was the box. He’d imagined a rectangular prism made of liquid mercury. He took the reflected golden light in front of him and tried to shove it inside, having read about one of the few ways to dissolve the most precious element in the universe. Technically speaking, mercury does not truly dissolve the gold – it just shatters the bonds and renders them useless before absorbing the gold into itself.

Still the perfect prison.

Alec’s own eyes were blue. The color of the sky, of freedom, Izzy had once said – a statement Alec had quickly dismissed as the result of an evening spent far too long with Meliorn.

But Jace was staring into those eyes now, with a hard, piercing look that made Alec want to crawl into himself and die a thousand painful deaths.

“Why. The. Fuck. Did you do that?”

Alec winced. There was no better word for it. He shifted inside, rolling away from the pain, ducking and dodging as Hodge had once instructed him to do should he face the worst of the demons that preyed on this world.

He couldn’t look Jace in the face, and his eyes focused on a spot past the other boy’s right shoulder.

“I – I – ummm,” Alec tried to spit reassurances from his mouth, tried to cover and roll and dodge and die all at once.

He never had a chance to finish, and didn’t even have a moment to brace himself – not paying attention to the threat in front of him – solely focused on the threat inside, as Jace bound forward, slamming the door behind him and spinning Alec around, grabbing his shoulder harshly and forcing him against the slab of wood.

Alec felt his doom decided as a roaring voice, from lips he couldn’t bear to look at – hadn’t been able to look at since that day almost 10 years ago – tore into his heart and soul.

“Fuck. You.” Jace punctuated each word with a poke to Alec's chest.

Although he knew the yelling would continue, and the arms pushing him into the slab of stone behind him gave no hint of yielding, Alec felt compelled to look up, to look his death in the face.

If his soul was about to shatter, he might as well sink into hell staring at something other than a poorly cared for leather boot.

Meeting his eyes was sharp and painful, liquid gold that had evaded its prison, striking back – outside of his dreams and the lonely moments he’d comforted himself through the darkest nights.

“I believed in you. I trusted you. We were supposed to be in this together.” Jace’s voice was flat but forceful, daring him to contradict.

Alec stared into those eyes. Those fucking eyes. He felt an old anger and stirring resentment and he pulled. He pulled it to the surface, the last remaining piece of his armor falling into place as he lifted a hand to smooth his hair back out of his face and mounted a final defense.

“Listen, Jace, I really didn’t mean to hurt Clary –“

“No,” his opponent whispered, his soft voice cutting through every layer of reason left –– some bizarrely strong steel alloy slicing through soft lead.

“No, Alec. It’s your turn to listen.” And, again, liquid gold pulled him forward, threatening to drown him, as surely as his parabatai’s words acted as a hydraulic press crushing his chest. His lungs. His heart.

He was drowning. Drowning in memories. Memories of a night long ago, when an important conversation between them had started in almost the exact opposite way.

Suddenly, Alec was 12 years old, watching a young boy struggle to survive the death of his father and adapt to a family dynamic vastly different from his own.

Comparing Michael to Maryse and Robert was like trying to understand the differences between the light and dark sides of the moon.

One rose each evening with a familiar – and, admittedly cold and disturbing – grin.

The other was always hidden.

Alec knew he would never see it with his own eyes, and images from Mundane satellites and cameras were hardly the same thing.

He’d kept his distance at first, immediately aware that this boy’s history – his life – was both as alluring and as inaccessible as the dark side of the moon.

He could never understand it fully, and he wasn’t sure that he wanted to.

Too haunted. Too dark. And the first glimpse, other than those beautifully golden eyes, had convinced him he was right to build a wall between himself and his new “brother.”

To love is to destroy. My ass.

 

* * *

 

Jace had come in the night, his tenth night in the Lightwood residence, and Alec had woken immediately to answer the soft knock, somehow knowing it was Jace.

Opening his bedroom door, he’d cocked an eyebrow at the younger boy, who was underdressed, wearing just a pair of pajama pants and clutching a pillow. He’d assumed that Jace was simply bothered by the lightning storm outside and the echoes of thunder shaking the Institute and its bones.

Remembering his mother’s plea to “be nice to Jace,” he turned around and walked toward the desk that sat opposite his bed. He’d known Izzy since she was born, and he was almost always nice to her.

But that had taken practice.

So he moved through the room and sat himself down in the fancy office chair he’d begged dad for as a gift for his 10th birthday. He clicked on the desk light, and then spun himself around to face the open door.

“Are you going to come in?”

Alec almost missed that imperious tone he’d once been able to infuse in his conversations with Jace. It was long gone now, likely greeting the last of his dignity with cold arms and a chilling embrace.

He remembered how Jace had curled in on himself immediately, hugging the pillow closer to his chest and looking down toward his bare feet, mumbling unintelligibly and epitomizing the word “distraught.”

Jace looked close to tears.

And Alec remembers this moment as the first time his heart had truly caught in his chest, choking on a desire to help and fix and heal.

He hadn’t really known what to do, and as time stretches forward and similar moments came up, history – aggressive in its desire for repetition – made Alec realize he’d never learned.

At the time, he’d cleared his throat, securing the full attention of those golden eyes for the first time, and he’d gestured for Jace to come in.

Jace had shuffled forward, insecurity guiding his faltering steps. He’d tripped over the ends of the too-long pajama pants, which Alec now realized were a pair of his that he’d never really liked.

He caught himself, but not before Alec had sprung from the slouched position he’d assumed when he’d sunk into the chair, now standing, poised to leap across the room and catch the stumbling boy.

Heart in his throat, Alec coughed a little too loudly.

“Close the door, will you?” He asked. “I don’t want to wake mom and dad.”

Jace flushed, a faint pink that was concentrated in his cheeks but spread down past his collarbones and coalesced at a small point above his sternum. He quickly spun around and shut the door.

Alec saw how the boy’s shoulders tensed as he held himself in place facing the door, and Alec thought – was actually convinced – that Jace wasn’t going to turn back and face him.

Maybe he would change his mind, open the door, and flee for the guest room he was staying in down the hall.

What happened instead was the first of many times that Jace Wayland would defy Alec Lightwood’s carefully crafted expectations.

The tensing of his shoulders was in fact a squaring, and when Jace turned back to him, Alec saw a glint of determination in the young boy’s eyes – a look that would eventually become as familiar to him as the sun at midday and the moon at midnight.

“You’re not here because you’re afraid of the storm, are you?” Alec asked, suddenly doubtful.

“Umm. No. No, I’m not,” was Jace’s confident and firm reply. “I wanted to umm, well. I wanted to talk to you. Because. I guess your parents basically adopted me. And you learned that like ten days ago. And I came here. And you haven’t talked to me since. You haven’t looked at me, and you didn’t say a word when Robert and Maryse introduced us.”

Jace’s voice grew tighter with each word, and Alec swore that his eyes glowed in the dark room stronger and brighter with each breath the boy took.

“You don’t know me, and you don’t like me. You don’t want me here. You don’t want a brother, and you don’t need me to fuck everything up for you.”

Jace had taken a deep breath then, and he somehow managed to make himself appear taller than his 4.5 foot frame should have allowed. He lowered the pillow to his side, shoulders back and feet shoulder-width apart. His perfect posture only aided him in his sincere delivery.

“You don’t need to worry about me. I know I’m not your brother. I don’t want to be your brother, and I know that you and your parents will never love me as if I was.”

Jace’s eyes gleamed with a disturbing light at that moment, and as he met them, Alec tried to remember his mother’s lessons – a Lightwood never overreacts. She’d said so on countless occasions.

(Splashing hot tea on himself. Getting on the wrong side of Izzy’s blade while sparring. The hot, exquisite burn of his first Shadowhunter rune, and the sudden expansion of his senses that had accompanied it.)

Alec had learned not to gasp like a fool, and he managed to freeze his face into the perfect picture of a listening but somewhat disengaged conversational partner.

But – despite numerous attempts – he hadn’t yet mastered his heart, which had, seconds ago, just shattered into a thousand pieces

“Jace…” he breathed, for the first time ever, and he steeled himself for the arduous, painful process of letting himself out of a cage of his own making.

“I don’t know why my parents took you in. And…yeah….you aren’t my brother,” Alec started, slow and hesitant.

Jace’s eyes flashed with some kind of fiercely smug expression.

Not smug, Alec realized. More like triumphant, as if he was pleased that he’d been proven right. Point to him, advantage gained, and any remaining worry that he could’ve been wrong washed away.

The certainty of a rejection he’d known was coming – one that he’d been able to preempt by bringing it upon himself instead.

That expression on a ten-year old’s face spelled the end of any wish that Alec had to act as though his parents were watching, and he felt heat rising to his cheeks as he glared at the boy standing in front of him.

“Hey!” he barked, and began marching forward.

Looking back on it, Alec had to admit that a small part of him had enjoyed seeing the doubt that suddenly flooded those golden fields that others called eyes. He’d relished the moment that Jace had taken a small step back and brought his pillow up as if it were a shield, but he was too late to avoid Alec’s outreached arm, and he grabbed the boy’s bare shoulder, shoving him back against the door.

“Listen to me, Jace, and let me finish.” Alec’s eyes were dangerous in this moment, or at least he hoped they were. He needed Jace to understand.

At a minimum, he needed to break through that shitty triumphant confidence that promised a future of casual but relentless self-destruction.

Alec was only two years older than Jace, but he’d already seen that path stretching before himself and had promised to reject it. Did it really matter that he thought Brad Pitt was better looking than Jennifer Lopez?

Well. Yes. Maybe. Especially when he let his thoughts wander a little too long when he was supposed to be asleep but was instead indulging himself in explosions of pleasure.

But Alec wasn’t going to let that problem kill him, and he wasn’t going to let that ruin the Lightwood name. He couldn’t ignore it, and he’d come to realize that he couldn’t let himself become some kind of martyr, denying who he was for the glory of the Angel.

He’d have to figure something else out, and maybe his first step toward knowing what to do was convincing Jace not to go down that path either – denying himself the feeling of belonging because he didn’t deserve it and couldn’t handle the potential of losing it.

“Listen to me,” Alex repeated. “Jace. You’re right that I don’t know you, and I don’t know what you’ve gone through. And, to be honest, mom and dad didn’t say much about what you’ve been through. But…”

Alec grew more confident as he saw the twisted gleam begin to fade from Jace’s eyes, replaced by…maybe…a willingness to listen?

He didn’t know what he’d do if the boy wasn’t willing to listen, and he silently prayed to the Angel for the strength to continue, picking his next words carefully.

“What I do know is that, if you give us a chance, we’ll be here for what happens next. I’ll be here for what you go through from now on. I can’t promise that it will be better, but I can promise that I’ll try to be a, um.”

Alec faltered. He wasn’t sure if the next thing he wanted to say was even remotely the right thing, and Jace’s expression hadn’t changed an inch, giving him nothing to work on, to build on, to encourage.

He scratched the back of his head with is free arm and resolved to say it anyway. “Umm, what I mean is that, uh well I already have a sister, and I love her very much. I would burn the world down to make Izzy happy. And, umm.”

Why was this so hard? During the last bit, Jace had withdrawn into himself even further, even flinching, pulling his arm out of Alec’s grip when he’d said the word “burn,” and Alec cursed himself for his dumb choice of words.

The one thing he did know about Jace Wayland was that his father was dead and that he’d been killed in a house fire.

“Fucking shit! Look I’m trying to say you could be my fucking brother if you wanted you dipshit!” Alec just yelled, directionless, arms flailing as he poured every ounce of sincerity into that outburst.

He was met with stunned silence.

He could tell it was stunned because Jace’s face, for the first time since the boy had entered Alec’s room, was completely open.

No walls to hide behind, and no ceilings or floors to temper the strength of his expression.

Feeling somewhat possessed – and blaming it on the late hour – Alec decided to keep pushing. He just wanted to break down those fucking walls once and for all.

And maybe, a part of him thought, even if they went back up, it might be nice to be on the other side, with Jace. He had plenty of things he wanted to hide from the world himself, after all.

So he pushed, metaphorically and literally, stepping forward to close the last remaining distance between him and Jace, and using both arms to firmly but gently nudge him back against the door – one hand on the pillow still clutched against the boy’s chest, and the other on his right bicep.

“Give us a chance, Jace. Give me a chance. Again, I can’t promise anything. But I know that Izzy and I can be good for you.”

He stared across the six inches of space between their eyes, willing the golden boy in front of him to just fucking listen.

“You could be our brother. If you just let us. If you just let yourself.”

Jace stared back, and wildness flitted across his eyes. Dancing visions of pain and indecisiveness and insecurity and a failure to understand the importance of believing in your own self-worth.

They stood there for a long time. Alec wasn’t sure how long, but he knew it felt like an eternity, and it took Jace to stop shaking slightly for Alec to realize he’d ever started in the first place.

And there. Fucking finally. There was that determined glance. No less cocky, but a lot less pleased – in that shitty smug sense he’d seen before, at least.

“Okay.”

And that was that. Alec let Jace go, backing away. He watched as Jace closed his eyes, breathing in and out a few times, before he snapped them open again, a small smile threatening to take over the distant corners of his lips.

“Thank you, Alec.”

“No problem, Jace. Now, are you sure you weren’t nervous about the storm? Can’t help but notice you brought your pillow…” Alec couldn’t help but tease. If this was going to be his new brother, he might as well start somewhere.

Immediately, he realized that this was not a good start, as Jace – no other words for it – dimmed in his brightness, casting his eyes downward once again.

Those beautiful eyes that had – that day, that night – burned themselves into Alec’s very essence.

To this day, Alec isn’t sure why he did what he did next.

He grabbed Jace’s face, fitting one hand under his chin and forcing it upward so that their eyes would meet, while the other wound its way through the blonde mop, threading his fingers through the boy’s hair and resting against the back of his head.

“Jace, I’m sorry. Tell me if I said something wrong.” His knuckles brushed against the door, and he lightened his grip on Jace’s hair.

He didn’t know why it was so important to him that Jace keep talking, but he was dimly aware that this might be some kind of final test. Had he done it? Had he convinced Jace he could belong?

Alec knew, somewhere in the back of his mind, the part he tried not to pay attention to too much, that his parents were not going to put this much effort into their relationship with Jace.

But that wasn’t a conscious thought now, as he tried desperately to pour as much openness and trust into his gaze as he possibly could. As Jace lifted his eyes to meet his, Alec knew the effort had paid off.

Bright gold, optimism breaking through jaded shards, and matched by a sharp intake of breath that signaled a willingness, perhaps a desire (too early, Alec thought, but maybe soon?) to share.

“They told me. That uh.” Jace was struggling. Alec willed himself not to move, not to breath, not to disrupt this moment, instead trying to pass some strength to Jace, some fortitude he might need to finish this thought.

He imagined it flowing down his arms, through his hands and into Jace’s…face? Alec quickly dropped his hand from the chin he was holding, bringing it to rest on Jace’s chest – not willing to let him go and break the moment, but trying to give him a sense of personal space if he needed that to continue.

“I woke up and heard screaming. It was so hot. Burning everywhere. All I could see were flames and all I could feel was heat and all I could hear was him. Screaming.”

Once again, Alec watched in awe as Jace’s eyes lit up, the determination that defined his very essence coming to life as he willed himself to finish the story.

“They told me. Your parents. They told me it was a lightning strike. We were in a wooden cabin in the woods. And a lightning strike hit us. It all happened so fast. I blacked out. Something about smoke inhalation or something they said. I don’t know how I got out. I don’t know how I’m still alive. I just know that he’s gone. That I’m alone now.”

Alec knew his parents were basically good people. They had taught him never to be cruel, never to attack in anger, and to always be considerate of others. They even donated some of their money to some Mundane charity every year.

But Alec also knew that they did this out of a sense of propriety, a surety that this was how people were supposed to act, rather than out of some devotion to a higher moral calling.

Hell, he was pretty sure even that charity was carefully vetted and somehow benefitted the Lightwood name in ways he couldn’t imagine.

So he didn’t really know what to do when Jace spoke those words and the wind rushed out of his body and his blood turned cold and his hands felt numb and black spots emerged at the edge of his vision.

He didn’t know how to handle the sudden sharpness of feeling another person’s pain so deeply, so closely – in such a way that it was suddenly his own.

The Lightwoods were good people, but they had never demonstrated empathy, never taught that particular virtue to their children. Compassion, perhaps, on rare occasions and in a stilted, unfamiliar manner (adopting Jace wasn’t a bad example).

But this? Accepting that another person can hurt you by being hurt themselves? Pain conceived of as a common denominator across humanity and possessing the potential for osmotic transfer between two people who had just met?

The exchange of a short story and the expression of deep hurt could inspire the best in another person.

Alec, struggling not to cry – both for Jace and from the realization that this boy in pain could crush his very soul if he let him – simply…reacted.

He pulled Jace into himself, wrapping his arms around the other boy as fast and as furiously as he could, tugging his head against his chest.

He felt Jace respond to the hug, tentatively at first, one arm going winding its way around his back before the other. Then he felt the boy’s head nuzzling deeper into his shoulder, and a spot of tightness inside himself became a sharpness that took over his face.

And he vowed to himself that he would never let Jace feel alone. Not now, and not ever again.

Jace stiffened his arms, and began pulling back. Alec let him go reluctantly, worried that he’d pushed too hard and too fast, but tried to roll with it the best he could, softening the hardness of his determination and rearranging his face into a questioning, searching glance.

“Did you mean that?”

And fuck. Alec had said that out loud. He avoided the pinched expression he wanted to make, recalling a favorite expression of his mother’s.

Sometimes, the only way out is through.

“Yes, Jace. I meant it. You’re never going to be alone. From now on, you’re one of us. You’re a Lightwood. And I’m…umm.”

Once again, the faltering. Why was it so hard to say what he desperately wanted Jace to understand?

Luckily, Jace chose that moment to look almost…hopeful.

“Jace, I’m your brother now, and you’re mine. And it will always be that way.”

An ecstatic burst of sun-tinged flame, blink and you missed It, but followed by a small smile.

“Okay, Alec.”

He swiveled his head and glanced at the clock on his desk. 4am. Fantastic.

A new brother, a new sense of belonging, and a new sense of purpose. It had only taken a storm, a carefully cherished pillow, and 45 minutes of talking in the middle of the night.

“Listen, Jace…do you want to stay here until the storm ends? We can sneak you back to your room tomorrow morning.”

No hesitation.

“Yeah, Alec. I would.”

And he knew that this was right. He knew, as he guided Jace to one side of his bed, as he arranged his pillows to accommodate the one Jace had brought, as he hesitated for the two seconds between the both of them laying down and wrapping his arms around the boy next to him, pulling them closer…as he drifted off to sleep…

As Jace whispered, mostly to himself, “Goodnight…brother.”

Alec knew that everything was going to be all right.

 

* * *

 

_“No, Alec. It’s your turn to listen.”_

Alec gave a valiant last effort and broke eye contact with Jace, trying to empty himself of all things and become less dense than gold, floating to the top and tearing himself away.

But Jace.

Jace fucking Wayland.

Jace was not to be denied.

“Look at me.”

Earth. Stone. Rooted to the ground and unwilling to compromise.

Jace fucking Wayland everyone.

Alec looked up, mostly because Jace had grabbed his chin, forcing eye contact. He stared into vast depths of anger and hurt, and he chuckled bitterly to himself that someone he’d just met could bring up these feelings in his brother, his parabatai.

He didn’t hate Clary.

Not really. She was just annoying, and she distracted Jace from the bigger picture. Also she put him in danger by being untrained, unruly, and unwilling to take advice.

Okay, so maybe Alec kind of hated Clary.

But even with that toxic mess of under acknowledged emotion inside of him, he hadn’t meant to intentionally fuck her over.

He still prided himself on being the nice Lightwood, after all. Izzy had pretty much cornered the BAMF aspect, and Jace was obviously the hot one. Not much else was left.

So, even knowing the risk, Alec had agreed to potentially humiliating himself just to bring back this new girl’s memories.

It even involved a demon summoning ritual, which Alec had pretty much sworn off doing the first time he’d stumbled onto some really fucking weird internet porn.

But, when the moment had come, and he’d realized that not only would he lose a memory of the person he loved most, but also that everyone in the room would know who it was…

He couldn’t fucking do it.

He couldn’t lose Jace.

It wasn’t possible.

It wasn’t conceivable.

One memory…maybe. To save the world.

But for the rest of time?

Nope, not gonna happen. He’d rather screw this poor girl over and face Jace’s wrath (which honestly made no sense – Clary was two weeks old!).

Although, now, Alec was beginning to think he may have made the wrong decision.

Jace was beyond angry. Murderous. Aiming the full fury of his considerable self exclusively toward him.

And of course, it’s all in his eyes. It is a small relief, the tiniest reassurance that he might still be able to breath, really, that he sees every emotion swirling in those depths except the one he’d feared the most.

There is no hate in Jace’s eyes.

“Why.”

Alec stalled for time. “Why what?”

“Don’t fuck with me. Why did you break the circle? Why did you ruin the one chance Clary had to regain her memories? Why did you fucking do that?”

Calm to explosive in 3 seconds. Jace Wayland never disappoints.

Alec, however, has a worse track record. He’s frantically trying to find words, praying to the Angel for guidance and advice and hoping against hope that he won’t destroy himself baring his soul to Jace’s fire.

“Jace, I swear, I didn’t mean to ruin Clary’s chances of finding her mother, I swear on the Angel I didn’t want –“

“What did you want, exactly?” Jace interrupted, voice sharp and words cutting. “Did you even want to help her at all? I’ve seen the way you’ve acted toward her. Like she’s not worth your time.”

Alec couldn’t help himself. He snorted in his most undignified manner, ignoring his mother’s voice in the back of his head reminding him how to be a proper Lightwood.

“It’s not my time I’m worried about, Jace. I’m worried about yours. It’s gonna run out pretty quickly if you keep wasting it with her.”

Jace snarled and his hand was suddenly level with Alec’s face, cocked back and balled into a fist and then he’s swinging fast and hard and angry and…

Alec twisted his head just in time, and despite being pinned against the wall and truly questioning whether he wants to or not, he managed to just barely evade a punch he knew he probably deserved.

He heard a sickening crack as Jace’s fist connects with the door behind him.

That’s going to leave a mark.

He steeled himself, and met Jace’s eyes again. They’re wide, the pupils are blown out and his hair is an absolute mess. He’s breathing hard, his fist still pushing its way into the dent he’d just left in the door, and Alec swears he probably looks just like this, just as good, when he’s blowing his load, cock buried balls deep in someone.

Really not the time to imagine that. But it’s hard not to, in his defense. No one ever said that Jace Wayland wasn’t drop dead gorgeous.

He realized he should say something.

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Alec starts. “Well, okay maybe I did but I meant that she’s untrained and she doesn’t know what she’s doing and you following her around like a lovesick puppy isn’t going to help her and it won’t help us find Valentine!”

Staring into Jace’s eyes, unwilling to glance away. He sensed as much as he sees the arm that Jace is pulling back toward himself, away from the door and the violence he’d wrecked upon it.

What he sees is a growing tightness in those golden depths, a hurt and an anger that seems to be walking a familiar path, as if years of marching had worn its very own groove.

“A lovesick puppy? Is that how you see me? After all this time? And you call me your brother.”

The hurt is evident, but Alec was confused. Sure it’s kind of harsh, but this – invoking their bond and calling him out on it – this is some next level shit.

“What the fuck are you talking about? You obviously want to bang her, and it’s clouding your fucking judgement, Jace!”

“Don’t talk about her like that! She’s not some fucking piece of meat that I want to bang, you sexist asshole! She’s my friend, she’s a Shadowhunter, and she deserves our respect.”

Sexist…asshole? A fair enough critique, Alec thought to himself, and he internally winced at the phrasing he’d used. But still, coming from Jace Wayland, that was just…surprising.

“Defending her honor already? Fine. Don’t bang her. Fucking marry her, Jace.”

Alec relished the shock that flitted across his parabatai’s face, and decided to double down.

“You’ve already decided that she’s more important than everything you already have. Might as well make it official.”

Even more surprise, followed by rage rage rage – exactly what he thought he’d see, and Alec gave himself a thumbs up.

It’s a sick boost that even though that redheaded bitch had stolen Jace’s heart, she’d probably never be able to push his buttons the way Alec could.

Years of experience and a sibling-like bond speak for themselves.

But then, once again, Jace Fucking Wayland manages to do something unexpected. Not unlike the first time they’d really met.

The rage passed almost as quickly as it had come, replaced by a flash of realization and then fuck no.

That cocky smile.

Combined with the determined gleam, Alec knew he was done for, but even that knowledge couldn’t prepare him for what came next.

“You’re jealous.”

Said with some kind of miffed tone mixed with a bit of awe.

Alec knew that despite his best efforts, despite the years of Lightwoods don’t overreact training, he knew that he couldn't contain the panic that overwhelmed him.

Even as Jace let him go and backed off, crossing his arms over his chest with that damned to hell smug look taking over his features.

Not even the relief of being out of the asshole’s physical control, away from his fucking perfect scent and a front row seat to the golden depths of his beautiful eyes…

Nothing could stop him from freaking out.

“I knew it. I suspected right from the start. From the moment you met her and the way you hated her on sight.”

Alec mentally conjured a shovel and began digging his own grave, imagining the best way to end this conversation, end his life, and move on in whatever was to come next.

He stared at his feet, glad that although he’d promised himself not to go out staring at Jace’s shitty leather boots, at least his own were clean and taken care of.

“Admit it, Alec.”

He did his best to ignore the voice, focusing on his breathing and imagining that he was on an island, far away from monsters and demons and angels and Jace Fucking Wayland.

“Admit it, Alec.”

Now he was glaring, a white hot rage building up inside him, like a typhoon descending on his island of calm and claiming the last vestiges of his patients and tearing asunder the box of feelings of hate and rage and love that he’d so carefully maintained for all these years.

“Alec.”

Something inside him exploded, but he somehow managed to direct it, forcing it into clipped words that spill out with the velocity of a bullet and the same short crack of the gun firing it.

“Yes, Jace. Yes. I’m. Jealous.”

With each word, his voice grew even louder, and he finally found it in himself to meet those angry eyes, only to be blinded by a white hot rage when he saw the amused expression they were pouring forth into the world.

“Ah. So. You laugh. That’s it. That’s the fucking reaction. Two fucking weeks of barely even noticing me. Watching me humiliate myself in front of Izzy and Magnus and that fucking new girl Clary. Forcing me to admit it, just so you can get your fucking kicks.”

He was screaming now. He didn’t care. He couldn’t. He had nothing left. This was the bottom of that particular barrel, and it had been scraped raw.

“Fuck. You. Jace.”

He poured everything into that. Not much, but it’s all he had for himself. Knowing that he went out with self-righteous anger, unfortunately directed at the one he held most dear. Something to cling to, if he ever finds himself able to move forward.

And Jace just laughed. At first it sounds cruel. Sharp. High. Almost barking. But then it dissolved into something else.

Alec stared. And watched.

And Jace began to giggle. And hiccup. And giggle some more.

Alec is left lost.

Lost. Uncomprehending. Horrified.

He’d never imagined that confessing his love to Jace would be like this.

Giggling.

Of all the weird shit Jace had put him through, this topped the list.

Alec just stared. And watched. Until the giggling subsided.

A tiny gap of silence.

And then Jace approached him, all confident swagger and easy smile and laughter still bubbling in his eyes.

One arm swam forward, directly in front of him, slow and calm without being careful, but Alec felt like he was watching it in his peripheral vision, his entire self tensed and hunched and focused on one thing only.

Those eyes.

Alec tried to back away from the arm, but almost immediately felt the door come between him and elsewhere.

Anywhere but here.

He couldn’t stop the sharp intake of breath as Jace made contact, his hand firmly clasping Alec’s shoulder, giving it a gentle squeeze, mirroring and demonstrating in the most grounding sense the look he’s giving Alec now.

It’s the same look he had all those years ago, when he’d looked up into his new brother’s face, asking if he meant what Alec was really saying, disguised in different words but the meaning and intention clear enough for anyone who wanted to see.

Jace had wanted to see it then, and had returned the sentiment expressed with the most loving, devoted look that Alec had ever been blessed to receive.

Alec isn’t sure he wanted to see that now. Not again, and not in this situation.

That same fucking face. Eyes, mouth, eyebrows, his entire fucking face bent into the same expression.

It screamed relief.

It screamed devotion.

It screamed love.

And then it shifted, hardened with a fierceness that youth and fear and loneliness couldn’t have matched back then.

Jace growled.

“I still can’t believe you.”

He paused, and for what might be the first time ever, Alec realized that it’s Jace choosing his next words carefully instead of him.

And that’s when Alec gave up.

He’s lost. He’s been outmatched. Jace had beaten him, and there was no possible escape from what he was going to have to hear next. He just had to submit, to accept, and hope that it wasn’t going to be the worst case scenario.

The nightmares that plagued his teen years. The ones that followed the sticky sweaty sexy dreams, fueled by his own guilt and egged on by his own desire to martyr himself.

Jace rejecting him, leaving him, beating him, killing him, hating him.

Alec doesn’t remember when everything had changed. When he first realized he was gay, he’d possessed a steely determination with which he’d decided not to make himself suffer. To live, to breath, to accept himself.

He remembers sneaking out on a bright July day when he was 14, standing in the crowd of Mundanes who waved rainbow flags and marched for their rights. For their dignity.

But it had been a long time since he’d been able to conjure that feeling up. He’d replaced it with shame and self-hatred and a desire to punish himself.

He knows, sort of, that it’s likely because he just had to go and fall in love with Jace.

It was easier to love an abstract male figure and think that someday he might love you back, easier to fool yourself into pride and a strong self-worth, than it was to love the most visible, most present, most important, and yet least attainable person in your entire world.

Suddenly Jace was very close. Too close. Way too fucking close, dominating his field of vision and tightening his grip on Alec’s arm.

“Where are you right now, Alec?” His voice was soft, rounded out by genuine concern and the most gentle curiosity.

“You’re so far away. You’re in your head. Come back to me, talk to me. I don’t want us to fight anymore. The last couple weeks were hard enough, and now you’re running away.”

He’d prepared himself for some kind of questions, but Alec honestly didn’t know how to answer these ones.

Leave it to Jace to get all esoteric at the worst of times.

Alec decided he really only had one thing to say. One option. One explanation.

And one shot.

He felt like he was swimming up to the forefront of his mind from some great depth. But instead of the round halo of light and refracted sunbeams he might expect, he knew that breaking through to the surface of his thoughts would just bring Jace into focus.

He’d have to stare into twin suns and bare his heart or lose his fucking sanity. What was left of it anyway.

He wasn’t sure he wanted to do it, but there again was Jace Fucking Wayland.

“Alec…”

Fuck it.

“Jace.”

Alec was back in the moment and he was pretty sure he had nothing left to lose.

Soft and beautiful and oh so encouraging.

“Yes?”

“Jace, I love you.”

He just stared. Blank. Alec watched his parabatai, imagining the cogs and gears of his brain churning toward some conclusion.

He wasn’t that surprised to see that the first emotion Jace summoned was confusion.

But to watch it fill his face to such a singular extent was somewhat alarming. That’s all there was. Jace Wayland was confused.

“Alec, I love you too. That’s why I’ve been so frustrated with you. I just don’t understand what changed because of Clary. What happened?”

Alec realized he’d broken some dam, some hidden barrier that had kept Jace holding his tongue this entire conversation. He’d shown his anger, he’d tipped toward insanity with his giggle fit.

But here was the real motive behind it all.

“I just…god fucking damn you, Alec. You’re just so fucking dumb sometimes.”

He blinked. What? A love confession, and now this?

“You’re jealous because you feel like I’ve put Clary ahead of you, somehow.”

A mute nod was all Alec could manage.

“In what godforsaken world would I ever put anyone ahead of you? You’re my parabatai, my brother, my fucking soulmate. You saved me from death, from loneliness, from my own fucking mind.”

Jace was yelling by the end, and Alec was too stunned by the grief and rage and depth of emotion to say anything that would indicate to Jace that, somewhere along the line, he’d kind of missed the point.

They were talking past each other, but all Alec could think was that maybe he deserved to hear Jace say all these things, even if it wasn’t exactly in the context he wanted to hear it.

All he’d ever wanted was to soak himself in Jace, in his love. And this looked like it might be the one opportunity he would have to do it.

“You will always be first in my heart. I will always love you more than anyone else in the entire fucking world. You have been and always will be my everything.”

Jace pushed him now, pushing against him and shoving into him and his space and his arms were steel, digging into both his shoulders and Alec’s head was pushed back, hitting the door, as Jace pressed their foreheads together.

So intoxicatingly close.

“I’m sorry that I let you forget that. I’ll never do it again.”

Alec sobbed.

He didn’t know where the tears came from, not exactly. They could’ve been prickling the corners of his eyes the whole time, waiting for the right moment, or they could’ve dragged themselves up from his toes and forced their way out in one explosive moment, but he knew they were falling. Fast and hot and hard against Jace’s chest, which Alec had at some point let himself fall into.

Warmth and safety and love.

Such unconditional love.

Alec had never, not once in his entire life, wanted Jace to kiss him more than he did then.

But something deep inside him knew. He just knew that Jace meant all of those things in a perfectly beautiful truthful way.

But now how Alec meant it.

Jace loved him with his whole heart, but Alec loved Jace with his whole being. Alec might’ve been Jace’s everything, but Alec wasn’t even a person without Jace. He had no identity without this love.

It was the core of all that he stood for, and all that he was.

Subtle difference, but important.

Alec wanted to kiss Jace. He wanted to tear of their clothes and fall into bed and beg Jace to fuck him for hours.

He wanted to worship Jace, learn every detail of his heart his mind his body his soul and cum all over it, marking it as his.

Maybe a bit weird and kinky, sure. But, more importantly, Alec knew it was one-sided.

So what the fuck was he supposed to do now?

He didn’t have an answer for himself, but the tears began to subside anyway, and he started to pull himself together.

Finally able to meet Jace’s eyes again, he led with the only thing he could.

Alec laughed, gently, almost a chuckle, and shook his head.

“I guess I shouldn’t have doubted you, Jace.”

“It’s not your fault. I knew you were hurting. I just couldn’t figure out why. I’d lay awake at night, feeling your pain through our bond, carrying it into my dreams. Please just tell me next time. I never want to hurt you again.”

“Okay, Jace.”

“Okay.”

“Alec.”

“Yeah?”

“One last question. What did you think was going to happen with the memory demon? Who did you think it was going to show?”

Alec stared at Jace, cocking his head to the side with the best are you fucking serious right now expression he could manage.

“Oh. Right. It would’ve been me. Of course. I knew that. Fine.”

Alec thought they were done, and he turned to the door to go. He needed to leave, to go find a dark corner to collect his shit and pull himself together again.

“Alec…” Jace was all soft again. Resisting the urge to roll his eyes and/or shoot himself, Alec turned again, meeting Jace’s gaze for what he hoped was the last time this night.

“You should know that, if it had come to me, the memory I’d have given up would’ve been one of you.”

Alec felt his body turn to ice, and he knew that if he moved even an inch that he would simply fracture into a thousand tiny pieces, shards of him melting away on this very floor.

Jace continued, and disappointment etched itself into every feature.

“I can’t believe you didn’t know that. I can’t believe you were so ashamed of me and yourself that you broke the ritual and almost got us all killed.”

Jace looked away from him, staring off to this left, tone hardening once more.

“You thought it was going to be Clary, didn’t you.”

Alec’s silence was a very loud answer, and Jace carried on when it became clear it was the only answer he was going to get.

As he spoke, he pivoted back toward Alec and slowly walked toward him.

“What can I do to possibly convince you that I love you and care about you more than anything? More than myself? Why is it so hard for you to get that?”

A tiny demon spontaneously formed itself in Alec’s gut from the disgusting mix of stomach acid and his partially dissolved dinner that had been resting there. He felt the demon crawl its way up his insides, nasty hooks pricking his throat as it forced itself up and out and grabbed his tongue with its sharp pointy fingers and made him speak the last thing he wanted to say.

“Kiss me, Jace.”

Raised eyebrows. A calculating glance. “Why?”

“Because you asked. You asked me.”

“That’s not a very good answer, Alec.”

Alec felt the demon in his mouth, twisting itself around to have another go at him. He clamped down hard, focusing on grinding it into dust. He chewed and chewed and bit and ground his teeth together, but he just heard the demon laugh and prepare to get its away.

And then he thought about Jace’s question a little bit harder. Why. Why did Alec want Jace to kiss him?

Yeah, because he loved him. Because he wanted to spend the rest of his life loving him, in every way possible. And he’d never told anyone.

Izzy might’ve suspected something, but Alec had never so much as hinted to her that she was right. He’d never even told anyone he was gay.

And he knew why he hadn’t. If he was being honest with himself, of course the obvious reason was because he’d been afraid. Afraid of losing people. His family, his friends, Jace.

He’d also done it to punish himself for ever feeling this way to begin with. The thing he’d promised not to do back when he was twelve.

He looked at the man in front of him. His parabatai, his soulmate. Stunning blonde hair, sinfully golden eyes, a body to die for, and a heart to treasure, to cherish.

What was wrong with loving Jace? What was wrong with wanting him?

Nothing. Nothing was wrong with that.

Alec felt the demon in his mouth combust, heat and fire burning it to dust – no – purifying it, transforming it into a white hot light that seared with truth and righteousness and politely asked Alec to let it take over for just a moment.

He didn’t want to resist, and so he accepted the offer, squared his jaw, looked Jace directly in the eyes, and opened his mouth to speak.

“I want you to kiss me because I love you, Jace. Because I’m in love with you. I’ve been in love with you since the moment I met you. You want to demonstrate your love to me. Well let’s spin that around for a minute. I’ve spent the last 10 years demonstrating my love for you in the hardest way possible, by locking it away to ensure that what we have, what you get from me, the perfect bond between us, is never broken. Yeah, I was scared of losing you, but I also wanted to protect you. From me. From everything that I felt for you. Because I was worried you wouldn’t be able to handle it, that by telling you I would end up leaving you alone. And the very first promise I ever made to you was to never, ever, leave you alone.”

By the end, Alec was sure that his eyes were now the ones glowing with some heavenly fire, as a truth he’d never understood for himself was finally released into the world for judgement by the only two people on earth to whom it mattered.

The silence that follows was a gentle ghost, twining itself between them and encouraging a thoughtful response.

A small smile appeared on Jace’s face.

“Alec, do I still have to kiss you?”

Just two minutes ago, Alec would be red in the face and dead on the floor. Now, he can’t be bothered to be embarrassed, and his response is a mixture of tired and resigned.

“No, Jace. You don’t have to kiss me.”

But Jace moved forward again, this time invading his personal space with more care. His hands came up to rest on Alec’s shoulders, and he looked up at the taller man.

“Okay,” he started, smooth and sweet. “Can I kiss you now?”

Alec tilted his head, regarding Jace with a light frown. “Why?”

“Because you asked,” is all he got before Jace was moving in, hand fitting itself to the back of Alec’s head and lips slotting against his.

Mundane scientists say that stars are giant balls of gas, with cores made up primarily of hydrogen. Through the process of thermonuclear fusion, stars turn that hydrogen into helium.

Alec may have an inside track on the whole “is there really a God question,” which could’ve included some additional knowledge about what stars are actually made of, but Shadowhunter ideology is pretty light on the subject, so he has no clue if the Mundanes were right or not and has always just assumed that they were.

Although, if he’s being honest, the whole bit about supernovas and stars exploding had seemed like something of a stretch to him.

Star burns for billions of years, reaches the end of its life, then explodes in a fiery destructive cataclysm to end everything around it? Right. Next.

It wasn’t until Jace started kissing him that Alec remembered the part he’d always forgotten. A theory that hadn’t quite been proven but made a lot more sense to Alec than the abridged version from before.

Sometimes, the idea goes, when a star explodes, the gases and dust and material it leaves behind become a breeding ground for new stars. Some scientists have even speculated that supernova shockwaves can rearrange existing material in just the right way that a new star is born in the wake of that all-powerful, super-destructive wave.

Now, it’s a cycle. Birth, life, death, some (okay pretty major) destruction, followed by new birth.

Alec can work with that.

Jace’s lips breath him into life. Soft. Slow. Gentle. But firm, with a sense of conviction. This is how things work in this universe. This is the way things are supposed to go.

Jace’s tongue, slipping past his lips, is life itself. Playful. Clever. Cheerful. But burning with desire. It’s a race and pace speeds up.

The kiss becomes more frantic and Jace’s hands are an entire solar system sweeping around his body.

Alec opens his eyes, and it’s in that moment he fully believes stars really do explode.

Boundless energy held together by gravity, exploding pieces of themselves, one atom at a time. Shining so fucking bright that Alec knew he could spot them from the other side of the universe if he just knew where to look.

He can see them building toward the burst, he knows they can’t be contained, that surely they will have explode. It has to end.

He knows he needs to breathe. He knows they’ll have to pull back. He expects it, the hands finding a resting place, one sliding up his back to rest at the nape of his neck pulling gently to signal him that his partner needs a breather too.

What he doesn’t know – what he can’t know until he sees it for himself – is the last thing that stars do before they explode, before they expel their starstuff and send shockwaves echoing out into the universe to help build more stars.

They shine with love. Love for their births, love for their lives, and love for their deaths, knowing that the cycle will continue long after they’re gone.

Alec had always thought Jace’s eyes shone like the sun, no matter how cliché and boring and not really as poetic as it sounded in his own head.

Now he knew that Jace actually contained the fire of a thousand suns – that he was ready and able to explode at any minute, giving rise to fire in others after sweeping them away.

Alec’s gaze became reverent, and he traced Jace’s face for what could possibly be the last time.

He didn’t know where he was in this cycle, yet.

He questioned Jace without words. He didn’t need to know right this minute, but he’d just demonstrated to himself exactly why they say it never hurts to ask.

Jace’s smile was soft and sweet, and Alec knew that, no matter what, they were going to be okay.

Then there was a tug on his head and the sudden rush of lips and he was alive again.

Jace isn't going to burn for billions of years, but Alec doesn’t need him to. Just the rest of their lives will do just fine.


End file.
